


And you don’t have a place you can go (You put your head on my shoulder to cry)

by zarabithia



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Gen, M/M, Nightmares, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, past Bucky/Steve, past Peggy/Steve - Freeform, past Sam/Leila, past Sam/Riley
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-27
Updated: 2014-05-27
Packaged: 2018-01-26 20:11:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,305
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1701005
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zarabithia/pseuds/zarabithia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They’re usually patching up Steve’s wounds, but on this night, they’re going to work on Sam’s. What else are they going to do in a shitty hotel in Ohio.</p>
            </blockquote>





	And you don’t have a place you can go (You put your head on my shoulder to cry)

**Author's Note:**

> This is part of what may or may not be a series? It follows up [When in Doubt, Body Heat is an Excellent Excuse](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1476892), but I don't think it is necessary to read that fic first. Just know that there is a reason they are in a shitty hotel in Ohio. 
> 
> The title comes from [When I’m Gone](http://www.lyricstime.com/brenda-holloway-when-i-m-gone-lyrics.html).

The thing about recovery is that it is an ongoing process, and of all the people in the world who ought to understand that, Sam is sure he's at the top of the list. 

But he's still aggravated beyond all belief when he wakes up in the middle of what should have been a peaceful night's sleep by the same old nightmare that he likes to pretend he's grown out of, most days. Maybe it's a good thing that he's left his job at the VA a few hundred miles behind in order to chase down a man that he has no emotional attachment to, other than that one time they nearly killed each other. Because maybe, if he is starting to forget that his path to recovery isn't over, he's a worse therapist than he thought.

That's why he curses internally all the way to the bathroom of the shitty hotel room that he's sharing with Steve. That's why he ignores Steve's friendly “it's okay; it's just a dream.” 

(Steve knows better. But Sam knows better too. They both still say it, each night this happens. It happens more often with Steve, because it happened more often with Sam when he first came home, too.) 

Sam shuts the door behind him, and he leans over the sink. The sink is pearly white, with a rust stain at the bottom, and he can hear his Mama whistling “Can't Hurry Love,” which she did each and every time she cleaned the bathroom; it's an oddly conflicting sound to hear while his memory replays Riley refusing to shut up about how much he just wanted to go home and take a “goddamn real shower. With real soap and one of the soft fluffy things my sister loved so much.” 

Sam stares at the sink, squeezing it until he thinks it might break, and shakes his head. “It's called a Loofah, dumbass,” he says out loud. 

There's a man outside the bathroom door, and Sam can hear him slide down beside the door. Sam knows that Steve is itching to come in and make sure he's okay. To hear all about the dream that has driven Sam out of bed at four in the morning. 

Hell, he probably even wants to apologize for dragging Sam out on this wild goose case into a state that can't decide if it's winter or summer from one day to the next. 

Sam can respect Steve's wants, but right now, he needs to take a moment to pull it together. Right now, he needs a minute to make his hands stop shaking. 

When the minute passes and the grief has twisted back into a throbbing pain, instead of the sharp stab that his dream had awoken, he sits down on the toilet and wipes the sweat from the back of his neck. “You can come in now,” he says to the door. 

Steve is ridiculously fast, and that will some day stop surprising Sam. 

He's carrying a sketchpad, and Sam wonders how long he's been sitting out there, waiting for Sam to get his shit together. It always feels longer to the person on the outside, that much Sam knows. 

He bites back an apology, because he knows better and because he is trying to get Steve out of the habit, and he's got to set a good example for that. 

The sketchpad is quickly laid on the edge of the sink and Steve is squatting down beside him. Captain America is squatting down there beside him on a shitty hotel bathroom floor, and Sam remembers wondering in 7th grade which one of his history teachers was right about Captain America. As it turns out, he needs to go look up Miss Morgan and let her know that she was right; Captain America's a pretty great guy to have a friend. 

He needs to go look up Miss Emery and tell her she couldn't have been further from the truth. Because Sam has squatted in uncomfortable places with a lot of men, and finding one that will choose to do it with you … that's a gift. 

_“The man's squatting with me in a bathroom in a shitty hotel room in Ohio in the middle of the roadtrip to find the first man he ever kissed, so he sure as fuck isn't a Republican,”_ has a certain ring to it, but it's not really his place to share such secrets. 

“You're bleeding. That from today's battle?” Steve asks. 

Sam glances down to the spot on his arm where Steve is pointing to, and grimaces. He'd noticed the twinge when he woke up, but he'd assumed it was only a phantom pain. 

Rookie mistake to make. Somewhere, Colonel Rhodes is facepalming. _“Rookies give me bigger headaches than Tony Stark. Always so sure of themselves and so ready to impersonate Icarus. Do I look like the kind of guy who wants to be talking about Greek Myths, Wilson?”_

No, Sir, Sam thinks, as he watches Steve get out the first aid kit. Colonel Rhodes is much more of a Roman Myths type of guy. 

“Let me bandage that up?” Steve offers as he squats back down. 

“We've both had worse,” Sam says. “It'll stop bleeding soon. It's only bleeding now because my dumbass dream probably had me flailing around like a goldfish on a kitchen counter.” 

“Yeah, the headboard took some abuse,” Steve agrees. Sam wonders if Steve also took some abuse. Because since they've taken to sharing beds – Ohio's bullshit weather does have some purpose, after all – Steve sleeps closer and closer every night.

Always wrapped around Sam in a manner that Sam can't quite read; it's lovely and warm and the morning erections are never followed up on, so Sam has no actual idea if the cuddling is platonic or not. 

But right now, maybe he doesn't want that complication. Okay, right now in the bathroom of this shitty hotel he definitely doesn't. 

“That's two headboards down between the two of us,” Sam answers while he looks for wounds on Steve that aren't there. “Boy, we are going to owe this hotel so much money.” 

“Mmm, and you remember what you said to me when I broke the headboard?” Steve says, like the stubborn asshole that he is. 

Sam does remember, so he rolls his eyes as he stands up and begins to remove his shirt. The pain in his arm is more insistent than ever and he winces as he sheds his shirt. 

“Did you know that in this state, it is illegal to disrobe in front of a man's portrait?” Sam asks, mostly to distract himself from the pain. There's a fear there, as there always is when the arm gets injured, but Sam ignores it. 

Steve looks confused for a moment, then he glances down at the sketchpad and gives a quick, self-conscious bark of laughter. “Is that an Ohio specific law or an American one? It's hard to tell, because people got a lot less sensible while I was asleep.” 

“No, no, it's just another example of Ohio being off the charts ridiculous,” Sam assures him. “I had some time, yesterday, when you were out getting food. Wasted it on arguing with cranky old pilots on Facebook and looking up information about how much Ohio sucks.” 

Sam folds the shirt and places it on the pile that they have in the corner of the hotel's crappy bathroom. Tomorrow, if there are leads, the pile will go unbothered; if there are no leads, they will go investigate the nearest laundry mat. 

He hopes they can find a cheaper one than last time. It's been a while since he's had to worry about using somebody else's washer and dryer, but he remembers it being a lot cheaper than $3 a load, and he actually lived in a real city instead of a podunk Midwestern town. It's not as though the two of them can't afford it – Steve's backpay is amazing. But it's the whole principle of the thing that annoys Sam. 

“Does it count, if it's a portrait of yourself, do you think?” Steve asks as Sam sits down on the toilet again and extends his arm. 

Sam glances over at the sketchpad. Sure enough, it's him. His wings are wide in the air and he's smiling. 

_Do you see me like that all the time?_ he wants to ask. 

And for a moment, he wants to panic. Because that's not who he is all the time. That's who he would like to be, that is his best self, there is no doubt about that. A partner has to know that. You have to understand that the other person _can_ fall or - 

Or they fall in the middle of a stupid routine mission. 

_I can't always catch you. You have to understand that in the middle of this goose chase_ , he thinks, but doesn't say, because he can't deal with Steve's Bucky issues when he's still in the middle of processing his own Riley issues. 

Sam closes his eyes against the memory, and his panic is interrupted by Steve placing a cold cotton ball on his wound. It doesn't feel good, but it's necessary. Sam opens his eyes and watches Steve's face. He doesn't particularly seem shocked at either Sam's injury or his time falling apart in the bathroom. 

_You're not his first soldier_ , Sam reminds himself, and it's comforting, in some weird way that Sam doesn't want to analyze at this time of the morning in a crappy hotel room in Ohio. 

“Do you want to talk about it?” Steve asks as he continues to patch up the wound. 

 

“You already know the answer to that,” Sam points out. 

“Yeah, but there's this stubborn guy I know who keeps telling me that talking about it will help,” Steve answers and there's a smirk. That smirk used to be hesitant, shaded in uncertainty. Sam noticed it that day in the park, and he's noticed it getting less and less hesitant, over shared fast food, bad leads, Star Trek marathons, and more amazing sushi than Sam had though the midwest was capable of. 

Sam is in the middle of falling in this shitty hotel room, but Steve's ridiculous smirk is a quick gust of wind that allows him to get back on track. 

“When I first came home,” Sam says, “The dreams were always the same. And I would think 'Man, maybe they wouldn't be so bad if they weren't the same ones every night.'” 

“But then they started to change, and they were even worse,” Steve guesses. Sam nods, and Steve's blue eyes glance up from the wound long enough that Sam has time to think of Leila's warm brown eyes and Riley's rich green ones. “Different people falling?” Steve asks in a soft, even voice.

“Guess you know something about that,” Sam answers, which isn't a real answer at all. 

“A little bit,” Steve says. “Sometimes it's the train and it's Nat falling … sometimes I'm showing up at the Stork Club and it's Peggy and she doesn't remember me. Sometimes … sometimes it's you and you don't have a clue who I am.” 

Steve looks extremely devoted to finishing up the bandage on Sam's arm, which isn't even necessary because it's wrapped really well at this point. 

“The Stork Club sounds like it has terrible food, and you still owe me Thai,” Sam tells him, and Steve's startled laughter bounces off the terrible tile of the crappy hotel room. “Peggy … she's the one who taught you how to dance, right?” 

“In her nursing home room,” Steve says, and the smile is only slightly less brilliant than it was a moment before. “Laughed at me the entire time.” 

“You always pick friends who give you a hard time, Rogers?” Friends isn't the right word. Maybe tomorrow, Sam will find a better one. 

A shrug and a grin are his immediate response. “Let's see, there's you, there's Peggy, there's Bucky, there's Nat...”

“So yes. Your masochism is interesting and unexpected.” 

“I'm not interested in mindless worship,” Steve answers. “I'm interested in people who would have hung out with me as a 90 pound kid who couldn't breath and didn't have the sense to run away.” 

_Is that why you never tell me about the Avengers?_ Sam wonders. Because the event in New York had to be a major part of Steve's life, and they've talked about everything else. But they never talk about that, or any Avenger other than Natasha. 

But it makes sense, Sam supposes, because he can't imagine that a billionaire or a god would have hung out with 90 pound, sick Steve Rogers. 

“Who taught you how to dance?” Steve asks, because he's a leader and a good friend, and both of those always deflect the focus back onto someone else. 

Sam wonders if he's met Colonel Rhodes yet. 

“Technically my brother,” Sam tells him, and he can still remember Gideon laughing at him in the living room. “He was terrible at it, though, so the real credit has to go to Leila.” 

When Sam thinks of Leila, he thinks of things that Steve has never heard of, and might not ever understand. He thinks of queer theory texts scattered all over crowded dorms, cold pizza and hot beer, and Erykah Badu playing in the background while they tried to cram for Dr. Bradley's finals. 

Leila whispering, _”That woman is going to give me my first F, and I won't even be able to be angry at her, because she is that fabulous”_ is as vivid of a memory as Riley telling him that, “ _Stuck out here in the desert, we can't even dance properly without some jackass reporting us. I'm not quite ready to go home yet, are you, Sammy?_ ”

“That's not the first time you mentioned Leila.” Steve's fingers dance over the bandage, inspecting his own handiwork. It stings, but the touch is comforting enough that Sam doesn't pull away. It's a necessary sting anyway. “She the one that got away?” 

“More like the one that walked away, became a lawyer, and moved back to Harlem to do some good in the old neighborhood,” Sam explains. He thinks of her again, and her goodbye. Leila, always unsurprised when someone didn't live up to her high expectations but always disappointed regardless. 

Sam glances back at Steve and thinks that maybe he has a type.

“She sounds great. I'd like to meet her someday.” Steve's fingers stop inspecting his handiwork, and Steve leans back, relaxing against the wall that can't be entirely clean in this terrible hotel. 

But then, he's probably slept in worse. So has Sam. It's probably why they have agreed to stay in such a shitty hotel when they could damn well afford better. 

Well, it's easier for their cover, too. Who would expect an Avenger to have such terrible accommodations?

“When we find Bucky, and we help him get his marbles back, we'll start planning that trip back to Harlem,” Sam suggests. “You can horrify my brother and charm my sister and impress all my nephews.” 

“Sounds like a plan,” Steve agrees, and he looks more grateful than anyone ever needs to look at such a simple offer. “In case I never mentioned it, Sam, I'm really glad that you're here. On this trip. I don't know why you agreed to put your life on hold, but I'm glad you did.” 

Sam reaches out and taps Steve's foot with his own. “I got my dance with Leila, and you got your dance with Peggy. I was supposed to give Riley a dance once we got home, but I never got that chance. I figure, maybe you'll get that chance with Bucky.” 

Never mind that he's pretty sure that Bucky and Steve have already danced together. Multiple times, and Sam doesn't even think that he needs to be coy about the fact that it included metaphorical dancing, too. 

The point is that Sam remembers – even more clearly on this night than he usually does – sharing a care package from Sarah with a man who had an even worse understanding of what made good music than Steve Rogers does, without the benefit of 70 years of sleep to excuse it. Sam remembers the hot desert wind on his cheeks and warmth in his belly as Riley offered in a low, hushed voice, “ _When we get home, I'll show you just how nice Aerosmith's ballads can be. We will dance our way through 'I Don't Want to Miss a Thing' until you give in and admit that my taste in music isn't so bad.” ___

Sam remembers refusing to ever dance with anyone to the sound of Aerosmith, and he remembers Riley trying to meet him in the middle with “Motown Suggestions.”

_“Okay, so it's a break-up song ….”_

_“It's a song about a guy who can't keep it in his pants and keeps cheating on his girl. Too much Aerosmith has rotted your brain **and** your taste in music.” _

_“But the melody's good! You saying you wouldn't dance to this with me, Wilson?”_

__Every device that Sam has that plays music has a copy of Brenda Holloway singing “When I'm Gone,” even if he'd been right and it really _is_ a break-up song. _ _

__Steve is taking a while to reply, and Sam isn't sure why. They've reached the point where they talk about Bucky a lot. It's not quite a gaping wound anymore. But recovery is weird and doesn't follow a path that makes sense, so Sam thinks maybe he's triggered something at first._ _

__When Steve talks, though, it becomes clear that Sam has read the situation all wrong._ _

__“But maybe...maybe my dancing days with Bucky are in the past,” Steve says, and 95 year old men should not sound shy, but for a moment, Steve does. “Maybe I want to dance with someone else these days.”_ _

__Steve glances over at the sketchpad still sitting on the edge of the sink._ _

__The desert is warm against Sam's cheeks, cold pizza lingers in the back of his throat, and the memory of the dream version of Steve that Sam couldn't quite catch fast enough is vibrant enough to make his breath hitch when he answers, “Then maybe you should stop wasting time.”_ _

__Steve looks uncertain for only a minute, before he gets up and goes into the sleeping area. Sam sits on the toilet and listens to the beds being pushed out of the way. As Sam walks into their sleeping quarters, Steve starts up Sam's iPod._ _

__Brenda Holloway still sounds amazing, it's still a break-up song, Riley's taste in music is still awful … but it does still have a great melody._ _

__“I can't always catch you,” Sam says as he takes the hand that Steve offers._ _

__It's an important fact to mention. It's the whole reason they're up at 4 ... no, now 5 a.m. instead of sleeping._ _

__“It's okay,” Steve says. “Sometimes, you gotta let me catch you.”_ _

__Sam lets Steve pull him close, and Sam rests his head on Steve's shoulder. It's a silent agreement, and neither of them interrupt the music as they sway together. Neither of them are healed, because that's not how recovery works. But this bit of kindness and warmth will get him through til the next nightmare._ _

__“Song is kind of depressing,” Steve murmurs when the song ends. “Probably not the first one we should have chosen to dance to. Sorry.”_ _

__“It's alright. We don't exactly have a track record for doing things the traditional way.”_ _

__“No,” Steve agrees, and his smile matches Sam's as the next song begins._ _

__The pain in Sam's arm still stings when he moves, and it's a pain that he acknowledges even while they continue their dance._ _


End file.
